Smoking and pregnancy sickness

Abstract EN

Objective : The objective of our study is to find out the relationship between smoking and pregnancy sickness.

Methods : This is Descriptive Compartive study which was done at King Hussein Medical Center during a period of one year from March 2012 to March 2013.

Pregnant women who visited the clinic and were complaining of nausea and vomiting were asked about their smoking habits and if they were exposed to second hand smoke.

The control group was from pregnant women who were coming for regular check up to the antenatal care clinic and were not complaining of nausea or vomiting.

Results : Two hundred and seventy nine cases were included with a mean age of 26.1 and 332 controls were recruited with a mean age of 28.2.

The largest numbers of cases were primigravida and para 4 and more (113 patients and 82 patients respectively).

Most cases and controls were in their first trimester (180 patients and 225 women, respectively).

Ninety percent of cases were smokers or passive smokers, while only one third of controls were smokers or passive smokers.

Odds ratios for smokers and passive smokers were 7.3 and 7.6, respectively.

Conclusion : Active smoking and passive smoking were shown to be directly proportional to the frequency of pregnancy sickness in this study.

However, more representative studies are needed to confirm our results.